


A cornucopia of rainbows

by sabrina_il (marina)



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: 5 Times, Beirut - Freeform, Blow Jobs, F/F, Gay Bar, Homophobia, London, M/M, Moscow, POV Nile Freeman, Queer History
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:07:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26113135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marina/pseuds/sabrina_il
Summary: "In the six months she's spent living with them, Nile was certain she’d seen every version of Nicky and Joe it was possible to see. From all their lies, accents, personas and quirks when they were working and pretending to be other people, to their flirting, their anger, their anxiety and anguish. She'd slept cuddled with them in abandoned warehouses, heard them slamming various flat surfaces against various walls while fucking and once accidentally walked in on them in the shower because certain thousand-year-old assholes never got the hang of houses with doors on the inside that actually lock.She truly thought she'd seen it all, and then, one day, she found herself in a gay bar in San Francisco."OR5 times Nicky and Joe went to a gay bar, and one time they didn't.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova & Andy | Andromache of Schythia
Comments: 56
Kudos: 629





	A cornucopia of rainbows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reutii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reutii/gifts).



> 1\. I did my best with research, but I am in no way a historian of any of the periods or places mentioned here. 
> 
> 2\. Did I put ALL my thoughts and feelings about history and queer identity into this fic? Not even remotely. I HAD TO STOP WRITING AND JUST POST THIS AT SOME POINT. 
> 
> 3\. Please feel free to comment with your own ideas about gay bars the gang would visit at different times/places!
> 
> 4\. ...ok yes I may have played a little fast and loose with the definition of a "gay bar" ok

**1.  
San Francisco, current day**

In the six months she's spent living with them, Nile was certain she’d seen every version of Nicky and Joe it was possible to see. From all their lies, accents, personas and quirks when they were working and pretending to be other people, to their flirting, their anger, their anxiety and anguish. She'd slept cuddled with them in abandoned warehouses, heard them slamming various flat surfaces against various walls while fucking and once accidentally walked in on them in the shower because certain thousand-year-old assholes never got the hang of houses with doors on the inside that actually lock.

She truly thought she'd seen it all, and then, one day, she found herself in a gay bar in San Francisco. 

"Stop gawking at them, you look like a tourist," Andy mumbles at her, sipping her whiskey and coke. 

In front of them, Nicky and Joe are... dancing is not the right word.

They’re kissing, hands all over each other, grinding their hips together to the pounding beat, grabbing each other's hair. 

And this is not them acting. They’re not on a job, they aren't impersonating other people. 

This is just... Nicky and Joe. Out at a club. 

"What is happening?" Nile says, forcing herself to look away and drink her own booze. 

Andy shrugs. "We're at a bar."

"We go to a lot of bars!" Nile says. "I've never seen them like this!" 

She actually can't remember seeing Nicky and Joe kissing in public, ever, now that she thinks of it. Or holding hands when walking down the street. They're more affectionate at home, but it's more about casual touches and glances, not recreating a porno while fully clothed. 

"We don't draw attention to ourselves, remember?" Andy says. "A lot of undercover time for them."

Nile wants to say that of course she remembers, it's their cardinal rule, but then she starts to see what Andy means. There aren't a lot of places where Joe and Nicky can just be physically affectionate with each other without standing out. Even if people don't gawk and take pictures, it still makes people turn their heads, look closer. It draws more attention, by default, in most places in the world, than a man and a woman kissing, or two men walking together on the street without touching each other. 

And they're always supposed to avoid drawing attention to themselves, unless the attention is part of a job. Boring, unmemorable clothing, bland haircuts, unremarkable facial hair. Average, common. 

Except here, at this gay bar, where they're playing a remix of Christina's "Candy Man" for the third time in two hours, and lots of men are dancing just like Nicky and Joe are, and the norm is different than what it is in most of the world. 

"Oh," Nile says. It makes more sense now. She'd thought they'd chosen this bar randomly, because it was closest to where they're staying. But no, they'd gone here on purpose. 

She wonders how often Nicky and Joe do this, or have done this, before Nile met them. Is this like their vacation from being undercover? A place where they can act like a couple and not draw any attention to themselves? What did they do before places like this existed?

She puts those thoughts deliberately out of her head because they’re too complicated and heavy and she’s too drunk and the beat is too loud for that shit. 

"Wait," she says, looking at Andy who’s gulping the last of her drink. "If this is their idea of not standing out... what are we doing here?"

There were a handful of women at the club, but Nile wouldn't call being here in the first place 'blending in'.

Andy leans back against the booth they’re sitting in. "What?" she asks, a sly smirk on her lips. Nile’s rarely seen that expression on her, and she instantly loves it. "You're not enjoying our date night?" 

Andy cups Nile's chin and leans in to kiss her on the cheek. 

Nile laughs and definitely doesn't feel her face get warmer from something other than a sip of alcohol. 

"I need another drink," Andy says, eyeing her empty glass. 

"I'll get it!" Nile rises so fast she knocks her thigh against the table, and heads for the bar. She gets drinks for Joe and Nicky as well - in case they ever take their tongues out of each other's mouths long enough to consume liquids again.

**2.  
1725**

Nicolò really hates London. He claims it’s because of the weather, and because he considers English a useless language, and is too old to learn a new one besides, with his poor aptitude for them, but Yusuf suspects there are other reasons.

For one thing, none of them can escape Quynh’s ghost anywhere on the island. It’s been centuries, and still the mere smell of the air, the sound of the vowels, the roads and the shops, different as they are, are constant reminders. 

Their current arrangement means Yusuf and Andromache are a married couple, renting a room together, while Nicolò has a single bed at a lodging house across the street. It’s not ideal, but they had to establish identities to accomplish their work here, and that means being visible and accounted for.

It’s possible that Nicolò is also slightly put out by the fact that Yusuf has chosen the alias Giuseppe Kaysani, and has passed himself off as the husband of Anne Kaysani, an Englishwoman who until recently resided with her husband in Genoa. Nicolò always claimed Yusuf’s propensity with languages ended at wherever the border of Genoa was drawn at any particular time. 

Yusuf doesn’t point out that being foreigners from the same country helps explain their association and means there are fewer questions about why the two of them spend so much time together in Nicolò's small bedroom.

It’s not about the language, or the names, or even the lodging arrangements. Nicolò just really, really hates London. 

Still, they have work to do. 

"I'm the one who should despise London," Yusuf says, one night, knowing the hour when he would have to put his clothes back on and leave Nicolò’s room grows near. "It's such a curious, novel city, but they have the most appalling ideas about how men should behave around each other. I think if I should have kissed you on the cheek or walked with you arm-in-arm the hair of half the people on the street would catch fire."

Nicolò laughs, and looks lighter for it, which in turns makes something unclench in Yusuf’s chest. "I do miss Marrakesh," he admits. 

Yusuf half sits up on the bed, giving Nicolò a mischievous look. "We should go back to Malta."

"You should go home to Anne," Nicolò answers, unable to suppress a smile. "Before the attendant on duty decides you're a drunk, unfaithful husband and all our hard work will be in jeopardy."

They’re following a very important man, whose life is in danger. They weren't sure what from yet, but that very important man had friends, some would say benefactors, who feared for his safety and were willing to pay top price to keep him safe. 

That man was also trying to pass important reforms through parliament, so the three of them had decided the task was worth their time. 

All the careful work of establishing their clean, upright aliases was thrown out, however, when a week later Nicolò and Yusuf found themselves following the man into what amounted to an illegal brothel. 

The common name for the establishment, which Yusuf had heard on the streets, was a “molly house”. The man they’d been following wore a hat and a wig purchased specifically for the occasion, a form of disguise, when he entered the premises. 

Keeping track of what the law did and didn’t permit for Yusuf and Nicolò, in public and in private, in every place they visited, became exhausting at times. As well as remembering how severely various things were punished, and what the official reasoning for the punishment was. Was sodomy illegal, or merely frowned upon? Was it prosecuted by the religious or the secular authorities? What proof had to be obtained to detain someone? Was anyone caught in the act in danger, or only someone performing a particular act? 

Neither Nicolò nor Yusuf know the precise details about any of that in London, but they know houses where men can go to meet other men are frowned upon by the authorities. And as such, they’re havens for criminals, from thieves to blackmailers, because who would want to have the constables involved while engaging in illegal activity?

"This used to be much simpler," Nicolò sighs, as they observe the establishment. "How can things only get more complicated, centuries later?"

When they were young, both Nicolò and Yusuf considered their acts with other men a spiritual matter. Yusuf had a wife and children, fulfilling his duties as a son, and more broadly an upstanding member of his community. No one would consider hanging him for finding pleasure with another man, occasionally. Nicky had gone from the priesthood to soldiering, two occupations where occasional encounters with men were basically expected. Anything that prevented the embarrassment and inconvenience of unwanted pregnancies was tacitly encouraged. 

"Well, I suppose this will be novel?" Yusuf says.

They've been to such establishments before, a few times, but it was always interesting to observe them in a different, new location. 

Inside, there are men playing cards, drinking, being loud and boisterous. Without saying a word to each other, Yusuf and Nicolò both decide it would be best to pretend they didn’t know each other, sit at different tables, blend in more easily. 

Yusuf plays a few abysmal hands, keeping Nicolò in his peripheral vision, and laughs, and argues with several men who share the same table, while the atmosphere around them grows rowdier. A few men go up the stairs together, to what Yusuf assumes are rooms on the second floor, and then come down, sometimes in pairs, sometimes individually. 

There are several patrons who go up the stairs dressed in ordinary men’s clothes and come down wearing skirts or bonnets.

From the corner of his eye Yusuf can see Nicolò is having a reaction similar to his own – a pleasantly surprising sense of joy at being in this establishment, surrounded by all these people behaving as they did.

The target of their surveillance disappears up the stairs, and Yusuf can see Nicolò stiffen, alert to the possibility of foul play. 

But within a short time, the man comes down the stairs again, and orders another drink before departing to go home. 

Yusuf and Nicolò follow him, from a respectable distance, until they can be certain he’s safe for the night. 

Walking the dark London streets by themselves, on the way to Nicolò’s lodging house, their hands find each other, fingers intertwining. 

What a strange world they live in, Yusuf thinks, that hundreds of years and so many countries and continents later, walking together in public, holding hands, can feel like an act of dangerous defiance.

They pass by a dark alley, and Yusuf pushes Nicolò against the brick wall, taking him by surprise, and kisses him. They’ve done this in so many cities by now, so many dark, public places. 

Nicolò kisses him back, and Yusuf knows it’s their way to reaffirm to each other that they’re real, that their bizarre existence may be invisible to the world at large in more ways than one, but they can always have each other like this, while no one is looking.

**3.  
1998**

The entire entryway of the apartment is layered with shoes, stacked neatly by the walls to allow guests easy passage. The shoes extend from the front door to the outerwear closet, to the shoes cabinet used by the apartment’s regular residents, all the way to the kitchen, stopping only at the border where fluorescent light begins to take over from murky darkness.

Their host is Sasha, who opens the door for them and gives each of them a hug. He knows them as Kolya, the son of Soviet dissidents who fled to Italy, who’s decided to move back to his hometown of Moscow for a while, and his boyfriend Yusuf, a Moscow resident for a decade but originally from Kazakhstan. 

Technically, they’d had different cover stories for the job they just finished, which Andromache took on mostly for sentimental reasons. Once a century or so they find themselves somewhere between Odessa and the Altai mountains, even when there isn’t really a crisis, disaster or war they deeply want to take part in, just because. 

Yusuf can’t blame her, they find themselves in places he and Nicolò find meaningful just as often. 

They hadn’t planned on saving Sasha’s life, a nice boy who lived in the apartment across the hall, but it had happened anyway. Sasha’s parents had a business, which, like a lot of local businesses, had fallen on hard times. They’d been given an ultimatum by the kind of people who didn’t think twice before cutting someone into pieces, and Yusuf and Nicolò had ended up taking care of it. It was supposed to be their last good deed before leaving Moscow, but instead Sasha had found out, which led to him delivering giant pots of home cooked food to their small apartment, and along the way spotting, with his keen eye, that it was Nicolò and Yusuf who shared the large bed, while Andromache slept on the sofa. 

And so here they are, invited by Sasha to a concert at the house of one of his friends, in an old building that belonged to aristocrats, before the revolution, where the rooms have very tall ceilings. It looked like an apartment that, until recently, had housed three or four families, now bought up by a single owner. 

They take their shoes off and go after Sasha to the kitchen, accepting two cups of freshly brewed tea, before proceeding into the large living room, where every surface from the couches to the floor to the coffee table is packed with people, mostly men. They’re mostly young, although neither Yusuf nor Nicolò are good at telling the ages of human beings at this point.

The concert is a one man show by a promising new singer-songwriter, or at least that’s what Nicolò understands from Sasha’s enthusiastic explanations. The music really is nice, melodic and wistful, the singer is a very talented guitar player, which makes Nicolò’s fingers itch for his own instruments, hidden in various safe houses around the world. 

Not all of the songs are explicitly homoerotic, but many are. It’s apparently a very specific sort of private concert, for very specific kinds of fans, where the singer-songwriter could perform songs that hadn’t made it onto his albums. 

Nicolò manages to find a spot on the couch, and Yusuf takes up a space next to him on the floor. The low lights, the quiet atmosphere where everyone is focused on the singer at the front of the room, as well as the lovely, strong tea lull Nicolò into a sense of comfort and ease. He runs his fingers casually through Yusuf’s curls, caressing his cheeks and shoulders. Yusuf, for his part, occasionally brings Nicolò’s fingers to his lips, giving them light kisses, without taking his eyes off the singer. 

After the concert is over, no one hurries to clear the room. A few people leave, a few more come in, and the space turns from a concert venue into more of a party, but quiet and comfortable because of the previous atmosphere. The songs really had been beautiful, the lyrics occasionally whimsical and occasionally profound. Nicolò feels spiritually full, somehow, in a way that he hasn’t in a while. 

A few men in the darker corner of the living room are kissing. No one gives them a second glance. Looking around, Nicolò can see that many of the conversations going on in the room are clearly flirtatious. 

There are gathering places in Moscow for men who want to have sex with other men, Nicolò knows that from previous visits. But he hadn’t been to a place like this in the city before, where men can gather in a quiet atmosphere, and talk, and listen to music about topics close to their hearts. He finds himself more grateful for fate’s intervention with Sasha than he’d thought possible to be. 

Eventually, people move, shuffling around the apartment, pairing off, exploring other rooms. Yusuf sits next to him on the couch, and considers his empty teacup with comical sadness. Nicolò leans down to kiss him on the cheek, feeling especially affectionate, and goes to the kitchen to get them both refills. 

“Kolya!” Sasha greets him, while Nicolò and a few others are waiting for the kettle to boil. “This man saved my life!” Sasha says to everyone present, even though Nicolò doubts they all know Sasha.

He begins retelling the story, and people become more and more interested, noticing Nicolò much more than he’s comfortable with. Eventually he gets Sasha to stop talking, and instead pours him another cup of tea, leading the way back to the living room. 

Among the things Nicolò would have expected Yusuf to get up to while he was gone, the thing that greets him isn’t even on the list. 

“The Prophet, peace be upon him,” Yusuf is saying, to a man who looks maybe… twenty? Maybe twenty five? And is sitting next to Yusuf on the couch, listening intently. “Never spoke directly about this issue…”

Nicolò quickly realizes they’re talking about how Yusuf’s faith, which he cycles through feeling closer to and farther away from, as the centuries pass, much like Nicky does, views men like him. 

The man next to Yusuf has a short, dark beard, and dark eyes, and Nicolò would wager he spotted Yusuf earlier and waited for the right time to start a conversation with him, correctly assuming that they were from a similar background. 

And of course, talking to young Muslim men who had romantic feelings towards other men, reassuring them, supporting them, discussing with them any aspect of Islamic theology they were curious about, struggled with or were trying to analyze, was something Yusuf loved doing, and very rarely got to indulge in. 

Nicolò sat next to Yusuf, quietly, and handed him his cup of tea. Yusuf took it and turned towards Nicolò briefly, giving him a peck on the lips, before turning back to his companion. 

Nicolò could see the other man’s eyes shine. How many men had he met, here in Moscow, who could talk about the Qur’an as knowledgably as Joe had and also kissed their male partners in the same breath? Not too many, Nicolò would assume. 

The conversation went on next to him, and Nicolò sipped his tea, held Yusuf’s hand, their fingers intertwined and resting on Yusuf’s thigh, and let the evening envelop him.

**4.  
2009**

For some unknown reason that probably has to do with strange, cosmic coincidences, Nicky is never more comfortable speaking Arabic than when he’s in Beirut. Joe thinks it must have something to do with how it’s tinged with French, which is not Nicky’s favorite language but is close enough to it for him to feel more at ease somehow.

They have a few days of idleness before they have to travel to Turkey for their next job, and Andy’s mood is becoming unbearable. She’s drinking more than ever, eating less than ever, sleeping in chairs and slumped against walls even when they have comfortable rooms and beds at their disposal.

A woman who’d been running a human trafficking operation, which their last job, in Hong Kong, had been about dismantling, had looked too much like Quynh. She’d even sounded a little like her, the same timbre in her voice.

She had looked and sounded too much like Quynh and Andy had had to kill her, because Joe and Nicky and Booker were busy doing other things, and because their investigation had concluded getting rid of her was the only way to stop things entirely. 

Of course, they didn’t talk about any of that. No one Joe now shared his life with liked talking much. Even Nicky tolerated it patiently, on occasion, when Joe needed to rant, to get his feelings out. 

Thankfully, Joe has learned long ago how to handle people like that. 

“We’ve got to go out, boss,” Joe says one afternoon, sinking down into a chair next to Andy, who’s already nursing her third cup of liquor for the day. “It’s been too long, we need a break before the next one. Let out some steam, do something fun in the sun.”

Andy gives him a look to indicate fun in the sun is a filthy, disgusting concept she has no intention of taking part in. “So go,” she says, taking another drink. “Just be back in time for the boat.”

Joe gives her a polite moment before giving her a more serious look. “The three of us can’t just leave you here. That’s against the protocols you set up yourself.”

“Booker’s coming?” Andy asks, mildly surprised. 

“Fun in the sun, boss!” Joe grins. “Who could resist?”

They go to a seaside town, an hour outside the city. It has a gorgeous beach, which reminds Joe of the beaches of his childhood, when he’d go traveling with his father and brothers on their trading routes, before his part of the family settled in Jerusalem.

There’s a bar on the beach, with drinks and snacks, and lovely, familial service, and some tourists, but not as many as there are in the city. 

Nicky passes for a local easily, someone who lived abroad for a few years and has now come back. Joe doesn’t have the energy to invest in getting the accent right, so he’s a tourist from Egypt. Booker is a worldly Frenchman who’s lived in Lebanon for a few years. 

Andy is mostly silent.

As it gets later, midday turning to afternoon, the crowd changes a bit. More adults in their 30s and 40s, fewer families with children. Some of the men at the bar lean close to each other, laughing, drinking from the same cup. A woman leans over to whisper something to a friend and they laugh, hands caressing each other. Nothing out of the ordinary, for the locals, nothing strange. And yet, an edge to it, a certain freedom and looseness. 

Andy turns to Joe, the drink frozen in her hand. 

“Really?” she says, flatly. 

Joe shrugs and hides his smile in a fruity cocktail. Nicky, next to him, feels bold enough to link their fingers together. 

It doesn’t take long for a woman to approach Andy and ask some innocuous question, intended to find out who Andy is and where she’s from, but really intended to find out whether Andy is the sort of person this bar tends to attract. 

Andy is wearing a black, glittery bikini, bottom half wrapped in a see-through colorful cloth, dark sunglasses and all the attitude a drunk immortal general could muster. Joe had picked the bathing suit himself, as part of the bargain to make coming with them the least amount of hassle for Andy. 

The woman must do something right, because the next thing Joe knows Andy is taking off her sunglasses, folding them up in her hands, and the woman is taking a seat nearby.

From their conversation it sounds like Andy is a tourist, here on vacation from Ukraine. 

“Do you think it will work?” Nicky whispers in Joe’s ear, more intimate than he would have normally allowed himself to be in public. 

“It can’t hurt,” Joe says, trying to keep track of Andy’s expression while pretending to not be looking in her direction. 

He can’t kiss Nicky publicly, not here, there are still rules. So to distract himself from Nicky’s perfect lips and Andy’s reluctant willingness to pull herself out of her funk, Joe looks over to find Booker, who’s gone to order more drinks. 

Except he’s now sitting at the bar, having a very involved conversation with a man who’s very clearly interested in seeing him naked. 

Joe sits back, pushing himself against Nicky, with a content smile. 

“It’s terrible, seeing you so smug,” Nicky says, casually, and presses a quick kiss to Joe’s cheek. “Makes keeping my hands off you much more difficult.”

**5.  
1982**

“We’re in New York,” Booker says, when he opens the door because the pizza arrives, and Joe and Nicky instinctively draw apart because they’re in the messenger’s line of sight.

“I don’t think anyone cares,” Booker adds, transferring the boxes to their shaky, three-legged living room table. “You can relax the rules a little, while we’re here. Especially in this neighborhood.”

Booker, their marker of the modern world, the youth in their company of ancients, is probably right, they both slowly realize. There are places in the city now where they can be almost as free as they were walking through the market in Cairo, about 800 years ago. They can hold hands, lean into each other, hug, even kiss on the lips, and it wouldn’t draw anyone’s attention.

But to be truly without concerns, they have to go to specific places, still, pay the cover charge, be surrounded by alcohol and loud music. It could be worse, and Nicky reminds himself that it’s not worth complaining about, not when their lives have been such an embarrassment of blessings. 

Andy visits some investment banker who ‘owes her’ but is mostly her regular, no-strings lay when they’re on this side of the ocean. Booker buries himself in research for their next job, announcing that he won’t be leaving the small apartment they’re renting for the next two weeks, so Nicky and Joe head to a bar.

Well, really more of a club. With flashing lights and a beat that won’t stop. Joe loves dancing, and this kind of music, although it’s utterly foreign to who they were before their died for the first time, is something he very much appreciates. 

They stay and dance and drink until they lose sense of the time. Joe goes to get them drinks and some man rubs against Nicky, too drunk to be subtle, and Nicky laughs and pushes him off. They’re dancing, and a different man flirts with Joe, right in front of Nicky, whisper-yelling at them about a threeway. 

It’s not that they’ve never brought other people into their mutual intimacy, but neither one of them is really in the mood. It takes care and attention and focus to sleep with someone you’re lying to so profoundly about every aspect of who you are, without leaving that person feeling cheated and used. Nicky and Joe are both determined never let that happen again, so they both prefer to expand their sexual repertoire when they’re sober and in the mood to be attentive. 

The club is hot, full of sweaty bodies and not enough ventilation, the music is loud and Joe takes his shirt off, stuffing the ends of it into the back of his pants, like a flag, like some of the other men are doing. Nicky smiles and rolls his eyes, because that’s sure to get them even more attention. 

They’ve both looked so different over the centuries, and yet more or less the same. They’ve had long hair, short hair, beards, closely shaved jaws, everything in between. It’s always interesting to see how people react to Joe, depending on how he styles his hair, how he carries himself. Right now, with the beard and his shirt off, Nicky isn’t surprised when some boy who looks barely out of his teens tries to hit on Joe by calling him “daddy”. 

The look on Joe’s face is priceless, and his response is to whisper-yell something to the boy that’s clearly an attempt at an honest, heartfelt conversation about parental roles and sexual mentorship among men, and before the whole thing can escalate Nicky drags Joe to the bathroom. The room smells halfway between a sewer and a brothel, and every surface is sticky or tacky despite an abundance of soap and water. 

There are two stalls, one has a broken latch and the other is clearly being used for something other than its intended purpose, judging by the groans. There are six urinals, two of them in use, but Nicky doesn’t care about any of that anymore. 

He pushes Joe against the wall, and Joe goes, with a laugh. Nicky pushes his back against the tile so hard it knocks the breath out of Joe or a moment, causing him to let out a huff. 

In the next moment Nicky’s on his knees, jeans soaking up the piss-dirt-sweat on the floor, and he’s undoing Joe’s belt and pulling his pants down, a set of gestures he’s practiced an infinite number of times, and then he’s pulling out Joe’s cock and shoving it into his mouth. 

Nicky hears a man at one of the urinals whistle appreciatively. 

Above him, Joe groans, too loud, shameless in a way they rarely allow themselves to be in public. This is all a terrible idea, even in a place like this, they’re drawing attention to themselves. Andy would scowl and kick them if she saw this – physically kick them, with her steeled-toed boots – and tell them to pull up their pants. She’d tell them about seven different times when she acted rashly and regretted it. And then she would touch her necklace, casually, and all of them would remember Quynh, and the myriad ways to torture an immortal for crimes against decency. 

But Nicky doesn’t care. Not right now. And Joe doesn’t either, apparently, since he’s grabbing Nicky’s hand in his, which is pressed against Joe’s stomach, and twining their fingers together. The sounds he’s making are slurred endearments in a dialect of Arabic no one’s spoken in about two hundred years. 

Nicky wraps his other hand around Joe’s balls, sucks him expertly like he’s done thousands of times, using all the shortcuts and dirty tricks, and Joe moans, pulls their hands apart so he can bite into his own palm to quiet the noise, and comes in Nicky’s mouth. 

When Nicky rises they’re both breathing heavily, both covered in sweat, both smelling of cigarette smoke. There are two men watching them, leaning against the walls of the bathroom. One of them is openly rubbing at the front of his trousers. 

Joe grabs the front of Nicky’s shirt, draws him even closer, whispers a litany of “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,” over and over in Ligurian, until Nicky kisses him to shut him up, because they cannot afford an even larger audience. 

They walk home, letting the muggy night air slowly dampen the fire between them. They hold hands occasionally, when not passing under street lights, share a few very brief kisses. Finally, nearly two hours later, when they’re home and exhausted, Nicky does as he’s told, and they fall asleep covered in come and sweat, with Joe’s back to the wall as usual.

**5 + 1  
London, current day**

Joe has the popcorn ready – made in a pot on the stove, with a healthy dose of tabasco – and the freshly boiled coffee cooling in four small cups on an elegant metal tray. Nicky stayed up all night studying aerial shots of the location of their next job, figuring out sightlines and the best positioning for a sniper. He’s been napping since the afternoon, and asked to wake him when they were all ready to watch the movie together.

Joe doesn’t mind that all their team bonding times have revolved around romantic comedies lately, and what Nile refers to as “historical dramas” and Joe can’t help but think of as very inaccurate portrayals of the very recent past, but he does miss having someone to watch football with. He’s never, ever going to say that out loud. 

He pours the popcorn into two different bowls and goes to wake up Nicky, passing by the living room, where he expects to find Nile fidgeting with the crappy television they have in this safe house, and Andy pretending to be asleep, with her feet on the couch. 

Instead, he walks in on Andy and Nile pressed up against each other on the couch, Andy’s arm around Nile’s shoulders, Nile’s arm around Andy’s stomach, the two of them kissing. They look like they’re in no hurry, like been doing this for a while, while Joe was being distracted by the sounds of popcorn and the coffee boiling. 

He crosses his arms and leans back against the wall of the living room. Andy has certainly noticed him by now, though Nile probably hasn’t. 

“We’re still watching the movie,” Andy says, tearing herself away from Nile’s mouth with obvious regret. 

Nile startles for a moment, turning to see Joe behind her, but the momentary surprise doesn’t fade into alarm or discomfort. 

“Are you sure?” Joe asks, not moving from his spot. “Isn’t it the one about the writer you—“

“I knew a lot of writers,” Andy interrupts him, but it’s too late. 

“Wait,” Nile says, drawing away from Andy to get a better look at her face. “You… you _knew_ Jane Austin? Was she like, one of your fuckbuddies?”

Andy rubs the bridge of her nose. “There weren’t a lot of things to do in the English countryside back then.” 

“So you had to _fuck_ Jane Austen?” Nile says, halfway between shocked and delighted. 

Joe decides it’s his cue to go wake Nicky. He goes into the dark room they all use for sleeping, sits down on the bed and presses a kiss to Nicky’s shoulder. He always tosses and turns when they sleep apart. This time his face is practically pressed against the wall. 

“It’s movie time?” Nicky mumbles, blinking, eyes trying to adjust to the light from the door. 

Joe nods. 

As Nicky sits up and rubs at his face, Joe wonders if they should cancel tonight, despite Andy’s objections, and go out somewhere, just the two of them. Andy keeps trying to play it safe, take it slower than a two-hundred-year-old turtle, with Nile. Joe can only guess at the different anxieties and fears plaguing her – about how young Nile is, by every metric, about how fragile she is, with a family still living and Andy now freshly mortal, about Quynh who is still out there somewhere. 

Andy is still waters, calm and sure, but underneath that, she’s always had a roiling underbelly of doubt and concern – for the team, for the world – and Nile pushes against all those buttons. 

But the boss has told them to stay, and so they’ll stay. The world outside sees them and doesn’t, a welcoming treat and a dangerous trap. But in here, wherever they call home this week, whatever walls and doors and locks they have for themselves, with whoever is part of their team, they’re safe. 

Even with everything that’s happened, Joe believes that. They’re safe, and they’re home.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments hugely appreciated!
> 
> Also if you want more Old Guard thoughts, I have a [tag for that](https://marina.dreamwidth.org/tag/fandom:+the+old+guard) with meta and music recs and stuff.


End file.
